So much to blog about... so little time... one thing...

Ever since I put together Mood News, I wanted (and people suggested) having a slider to 'mix' the level of the news. Silverlight 2 (beta) inspired me to put together a new version and though a bit plain looking for a Silverlight app. Data is not updated 'live' yet but that will come soon. Definitely some scope for some swirly colour gradients.

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2008-05-13 21:55:04.
Categories: IronPython, Python, MoodNews Tags : BBC
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

The BBC have been working on some cool RSS projects and they are going to open source a web slider controls soon too. There's a pretty cool demo to play with. The idea is you 'mix' a level of locality to the news you want.

I have always wanted to add a slider to MoodNews and this looks like a good fit. Other slider controls are available! Speaking of the BBC, MoodNews got a mention on the PM blog the other day. PM is probably my favourite news program on radio and accompanies me on my commute home each night.

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2008-01-09 22:07:21.
Categories: Internet, IronPython, Python, MoodNews Tags : BBC Mashup Slider
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

It has been a while coming, Mood News is now IronPython powered. It is running on 2.0A6 due to a bug in A7 which stops QueryPy working. Also made a last minute change from Zedgraph to Google for the pie charts. There's a much bigger dictionary now so the ratings should have much fewer unknown ratings. Due to low demand, the podcasts are no longer available. The RSS feed has been enhanced. For more technical details on how it was built see the API page.

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-12-30 20:56:46.
Categories: Python, Internet, IronPython, MoodNews Tags : Mashup BBC
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-03-25 20:40:01.
Categories: Python, MoodNews Tags : bbc backstage mashup google googlemodule
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

I have spent some time this weekend dealing with problems caused by the recent domain name change and shifting some sites onto Blogger. I am nearly there and in the interest of helping people find stuff I am planning a new homepage for Latedecember.co.uk - meantime this blog entry will have to do.

News Sites * MoodNews * UK Prophecy News

Techie * LDBackup * Python Podcasts * BugWatch

Scottish Town Blogs * The Dundee Blog * The Perth Blog * The Angus Blog

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-02-25 20:34:05.
Categories: Angus, Christian, Python, Podcast, MoodNews, Internet, General
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

Varous boring reasons have kept me not blogging of late. The only one worth mentioning is that the domain is no longer latedecember.com but latedecember**.co.uk**. Contact me if you cannot find anything on the site or something is broken

There are new links for LDBackup and MoodNews. For the more techie inclined the Python Podcasts have had to change too.

Project wise things have moved on with TayLayout living entirely at Google. TayLayout is a layout and gui helper library that is coming along nicely. However I have been spending most of my time on the next release of Firedrop. This weekend it was an update to the stats feature which is viewable online here. Also there's updates to my ScratchPad and WinExp plugins. LDBackup will probably be moved to Beta soon - for obvious reasons I am testing that one over a LONG period. Still fixing bits of the site due to domain change and shifting some of my blogs onto blogspot.

So it is all happening

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2007-02-05 13:25:40.
Categories: Internet, IronPython, Podcast, Python, MoodNews, Software
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

There's a few things I'd like to jot down which are less than a full blog post so this is one of those odds and ends posts

I am working on the template for this site. Not quite there. I liked the dark gold and red but may swap for something more minimalistic for a change. Let me know. Once I am happy with the template, there will be a mini-Python site to bring together the Podcasts, Software, Firedrop2 plugins and some other new stuff.

MoodNews has had its podcasts fixed - someone had commented out the upload lines in the Python script... ooops... Also apologies if the comp.lang.python podcasts were a little big in the past few days. I am looking into it. On the topic of Usenet, I do like the look of the Google Groups beta. Big improvement though I would like to see some of the GMail keyboard shortcuts in there.

I bought the Megapack version of Movable Python and it is really good. Handy launcher with a better GUI. If I stop playing with it I may get round to writing a long-ish review of it. Though as it contains Firedrop2 I would be reviewing my own code (a bit) !!

Finally, Microsoft have released a VirtualPC image for IE6. Handy for work. Thanks guys!

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-12-01 20:31:27.
Categories: Python, MoodNews, Podcast Tags : IE6 GMail Google Groups Microsoft
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

The Hindu Business Line : Good or bad, news is news (Link) ''Good or bad, news is news''

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-08-21 22:07:44.
Categories: Python, MoodNews, Internet
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

The BBC have launched a new site called 'The Time When - Share stories of memorable days in your life'. Visit the site to browse some interesting entries.

Of course there are RSS feeds, and I mashed them up with MoodNews to produce Mood Memories(Link)

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-08-12 20:30:52.
Categories: Python, Internet, MoodNews Tags : BBC 2.0 mashup memory stories memories
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

I feel I must explain the title of my previous blog entry! I was using Aggdraw to update the Mood News charts - a trend and a Pie Chart. Hope that makes some sense now. Most of the work on the new version is done. Just a case of tidying up and pulling out the AJAX stuff which never really made much sense.

Keeping on the Python theme, I finally got round to playing with the latest version of PythonCard and boy is it good. I am especially impressed with the new Layout Editor. Comes just at the right time as I want to update my LateDecemberBackup program which should be open source eventually.

Finally, thanks to the IronPython team at Microsoft. I reported a bug yesterday PM and the fix was checked in TODAY - they do 'get' OSS . I am hoping to get Kirbybase up and running on .Net - I need to remove the use of cModules and get the aforementioned fix but it should not be too hard apart from Client/Server mode which relies on pickles. A mode I could live without!!

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-06-30 21:50:48.
Categories: MoodNews, Python Tags : IronPython Pythoncard Bugfix bug microsoft kirbybase
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

Aggdraw is another gem from the people who brought you PIL. It is everything a graphics library should be. Easy to use with high quality output. Also very fast though I have only tried simple things with it so far.

The aggdraw Module ::: www.effbot.org(Link) ''An AGG-based drawing interface. The aggdraw module implements the basic WCK 2D Drawing Interface on top of the AGG library. This library supports anti-aliasing and alpha compositing, but is otherwise fully compatible with the WCK renderer.''

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-06-26 22:28:40.
Categories: MoodNews, Python Tags : Graphics Library WCK effbot PIL
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |

Last night I had the interesting experience of being interviewed by Graeme of the ValuesHacker Podcast. I was all about my BBC Backstage project MoodNews and was good fun. The episode should be out in a week or so.

TPN :: ValuesHacker(Link) ''Ethics and values approached from a lifehacker point of view, where we explore human values, thinking and resulting actions via discussions and interviews with key people around the big values issues of the day.''

Of course, with Graeme being a full-time Pythoneer we did manage to name drop Python a few times I also mentioned FireDrop2 as a little clue for what is next for Mood News in the medium term. In the short term, there is a redesign coming along just nicely. I also have nearly a years worth of data to analyse... Sadly I didn't save it for every story just the summary.

Posted by Davy Mitchell on 2006-06-22 20:06:51.
Categories: Podcast, MoodNews, Python Tags : ValuesHacker Values Hacker Python Podcast MoodNews BBC backstage
Like this post? Digg it or Del.icio.us it. |